May 29 Matthiessenn State Park

Thursday – May 29th – Set out to explore the area more. Found a JC Whitney Outlet Store (guy thing) MM enjoyed strolling through there for awhile. Then we drove all around and this is definitely corn country. Lots of crops are planted. Stopped for lunch and then a car wash. Found a library, but the laptop couldn’t find the wireless. Don’t know the problem. If it happens again I’ll try plugging it in. It did have a full charge, but I’ve heard that can sometimes be the problem. We’ll see. There might not be any more updates on the blog .
Then we came upon Matthiessen State Park. What a find! We took the stairs (LOTS of STAIRS) down to the lower dells and the falls there were BEAUTIFUL! Used the timer on MM’s camera and got a shot of the two of us.

The exposed roots on the trees was very interesting. The soil had been eroded away leaving a mass of roots. Interesting.

The hiking around there had a lot of stairs and rocks or as this picture shows stepping stones across the running waters.

Oh yeah, did I mention stairs? There had to be 500 if there was 1. Lots of Stairs!!

MM was hiking in front of me and I noticed something move. This spider’s body was the size of a quarter. And he was hairy too. I was going to put my finger down next to him to get more perspective, but I was afraid he’d jump.

We talked with this young man on the trail. The first time we saw him he was just hiking, the second time he had some serious camera equipment with him. He said he worked for a travel magazine. The lens’ were at least 3 feet long. Then on his other shoulder he was carrying his tripod. He was really weighed down and the path he was about to embark on was very muddy. I’m sure he got some great shots.

We hiked the whole loop from the Bridge/Dam Lake Falls past the Giant’s Bathtub around Cedar Point (no amusement rides here) over to the Fort then around Strawberry Rock and Devil’s Paint Box. It got a little confusing here, but we went over the bridge to Cascade Falls and Wishing Well then back around to the upper dells. The most beautiful falls were the first ones that took us down to the bottom of the basin. This area wasn’t very well marked and I’m glad we came upon it.